The invention relates to a food dispenser and a food portioning and dispensing method.
So-called food dispensers are used in the food industry in order to portion ready-made food products or ingredients from a store and to dispense the portion. Such dispensers are also used in commercial kitchens, bakeries and confectionery production, in particular in cake shops. By means of the known dispensers, not only dough but also, for example, cooked pasta, soups, bulk products, such as whipped cream or icing, or even meat may be portioned and dispensed.
Known food dispensers comprise a piston which is generally driven pneumatically and which serves to suction food into a cylinder in a first working stroke and to dispense the food portioned to the suctioned volume in a second stroke oriented in the opposing direction. A valve is assigned to the piston, during the first stroke said valve creating a connection between a suction opening and a working opening assigned to the piston and closing this connection before the start of the counterstroke and at the same time creating a connection between the working opening and a dispensing opening.
Hitherto, there were two different designs regarding the mode of operation of the valve used.
The oldest known design consists in rotating a valve body contoured in a substantially cylindrical manner between two switching positions, in this case the suction opening, the working opening and the dispensing opening being located at peripheral positions of a valve housing offset to one another by 90° but at the same axial position.
Food dispensers operating according to the aforementioned principle are disclosed in the US publications U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,032,163 A, 5,127,547 and 5,441,173.
In addition, a food dispenser is produced and distributed by the applicant in which the valve body is not rotatable but merely displaceable in an axially translatory manner between the two switching positions. Also, with such a valve configuration, the suction opening, the working opening and the dispensing opening are offset relative to one another by 90° at the same axial position of a valve housing enclosing the valve body.
Attempts have been made to increase the operating safety in food dispensers, namely in the case where a user inadvertently pushes a finger into one of the aforementioned openings during the operation of the device. Moreover, the food is intended to be conveyed with as little damage as possible.
A device for the metered filling of free-flowing products is disclosed in DE 38 38 462 A1, the device having a valve body which is not only movable in a purely rotatable manner, in contrast to a generic device—the valve body of the disclosed device is also able to be displaced in a translatory manner, which is to be avoided. A drawback with the disclosed device is the considerable risk of injury when the valve body is rotated, by fingers being cut off in the region of the openings.
A metering device is also disclosed in US 2004/129338 A1, in which a considerable risk of injury is present.